Ruling — Above and Below

You asked

How do I play?

Answered counted as answered

Asked with: Above and Belowbg-172818-en-1e

The game is played in rounds.[1] Each round, players take turns assigning their villagers to take actions.[1] A player may take as many free actions as they like before performing a normal action, but they may not perform any free actions after a normal action has been performed.[2] When a player wishes to take no more actions in the round, they state they wish to pass; the round ends when all players have passed.[1]

Available Actions:

* Harvest: The player slides one or more villagers from the ready area to the exhausted area of their player board.[2] For each exhausted villager, the player may take one goods token from one of their houses or out toposts and place it next to their coins, place it for sale in the top left corner of their player board, or place it in their advancement track.[2]

* Train: The player slides a villager with a quill symbol from the ready area to the exhausted area.[2] The player may then pay the cost in coins (listed on the reputation board) to the supply to train a new villager from the reputation board.[2] The newly-trained villager is placed in the exhausted area.[2]

* Labor: The player slides one or more villagers from the ready area to the exhausted area.[2] For each exhausted villager, the player gains one coin.[2] The first player to labor each round also gains the cider token on the reputation board if one is available.[2]

* Explore: The player draws a cave card and places it to the left of their player board.[3] The player slides at least two villagers from the ready area to the card.[3] The player rolls a die and compares it to the grid of numbers on the cave card to determine which paragraph to read from the encounter book.[3] The player selects one of the available choices from the encounter text and must attempt to meet or exceed an associated explore number by rolling one die for each villager sent into the cavern.[3] If the total number of lanterns (gained via rolls of 1 or more) is insufficient, the player may choose to Exert villagers to gain extra lanterns.[3]

Free Actions:

* Purchase from another player: A player may purchase any good, cider, or potion placed for sale in the top left corner of another player's board.[2] The player must pay at least 3 coins.[2]

End of Round and Game End:

* End of Round Steps:

1. Players collect income from any house or outpost cards that provide extra income.[4]

2. If a player owns a house or outpost with an arrow symbol next to a good, and there is no good on the card, they place one appropriate good there.[4]

3. The first player passes the first-player card to the player on their left.[4]

4. If seven rounds have not passed, the next round begins.[4]

* Game End: The game is over after seven rounds.[1]

[1] RULEBOOK Above and Below — Rulebook · p.6 · Above and Below is played in rounds.

[2] RULEBOOK Above and Below — Rulebook · p.9 · Harvest · Train · Labor · Free Actions · Buy From a Player

[3] RULEBOOK Above and Below — Rulebook · p.6 · Explore

[4] RULEBOOK Above and Below — Rulebook · p.11 · Three Goods on the Advancement Track · Refresh Goods on Buildings · Pass First-Player card to the Left · Start the Next Round

Rule found, game on.

🔧 debug — where this ruling came from

outcome: ANSWERED — Answered
corpus profile: live,vps
answerer pin (deploy-frozen, attribution only): gemma4:26b think:false 5571076f3d70
timings: search 111 ms · ask 6761 ms · total 6874 ms
single-flight (PR-5): queued 0 ms · generation 6874 ms
retrieval refs (raw) — what the PASSAGE SEARCH returned, not what the answerer read: [{"page": 4, "score": 0.048916, "snippet": "Each player places this cube on the torch space on the reputation board. 8. Decide who will be the first player. Turn order is in clockwise direction. Give the first player the first-player card. If playing with two players, give the second player one extra coin. If playing with three players, give ", "headingPath": "Setting up the Game", "sharpsignalDocId": 472}, {"page": 6, "score": 0.047883, "snippet": "Each round, players take turns assigning their villagers to take actions. When a player wishes to take no more actions in the round, he states that he wishes to pass. When all players have passed, the round ends (this means that some players will sometimes have more turns than others). You descend a", "headingPath": "Above and Below is played in rounds.", "sharpsignalDocId": 472}, {"page": 4, "score": 0.047643, "snippet": "1. Give each player a player board, seven coins, 1 starting house card, and 1 of each type of starting villager (3 villagers total for each player). The starting villagers have a house on the back of the token. The 3 villagers should have the symbols depicted at '1A' (opposite page), and start in th", "headingPath": "Setting up the Game", "sharpsignalDocId": 472}, {"page": 9, "score": 0.031746, "snippet": "A player may place one of his goods, a cider, or a potion for sale by placing it in the circle at the top left corner of his player board. Other players may attempt to purchase it on their turns. A player may remove the good that is for sale, or replace it with something else, only on his turn. A pl", "headingPath": "Put Something for Sale", "sharpsignalDocId": 472}, {"page": 8, "score": 0.030769, "snippet": "To Exert a villager, the player removes the villager from the cave card and places him or her in the injured area on his player board. Each exerted villager gives the player one extra lantern. If the final total of lanterns meets or exceeds one of the explore numbers associated with the player's cho", "headingPath": "Explore", "sharpsignalDocId": 472}, {"page": 6, "score": 0.030303, "snippet": "Villagers explore the cavern in an attempt to find a place for an underground outpost. First, the player draws a cave card from the top of the cave card deck and places it to the left of his player board (near the rocks in the corner). He then slides two or more villagers from the ready area on his ", "headingPath": "Explore", "sharpsignalDocId": 472}, {"page": 12, "score": 0.029851, "snippet": "A player's advancement track is the row of circles along the bottom of his player board. A player may place available goods on this track at any time. He must place goods from left to right, not leaving any empty slots. Once a good has been placed, if the player wishes to place another good of the s", "headingPath": "Advancement Track", "sharpsignalDocId": 472}, {"page": 10, "score": 0.029412, "snippet": "If a player wants new options of houses or outposts to purchase, he may pay one coin to replace all four available cards in one of the rows. He takes the four current houses or outposts in the row and places them at the bottom of the deck, then draws four new cards from the top of the deck and place", "headingPath": "Refresh Building Row · Pass · 2. End the Round: When · Round Marker · Cider · New Villagers · …", "sharpsignalDocId": 472}]
citations (raw) — what the answer cited, chosen from a retrieval this page cannot show: [{"page": 6, "quote": null, "headingPath": "Above and Below is played in rounds.", "sharpsignalDocId": 472}, {"page": 9, "quote": null, "headingPath": "Harvest · Train · Labor · Free Actions · Buy From a Player", "sharpsignalDocId": 472}, {"page": 6, "quote": null, "headingPath": "Explore", "sharpsignalDocId": 472}, {"page": 11, "quote": null, "headingPath": "Three Goods on the Advancement Track · Refresh Goods on Buildings · Pass First-Player card to the Left · Start the Next Round", "sharpsignalDocId": 472}]
boost provenance — errata + base rulebook (E2/E3): no registered errata card matched this query; base rulebook doc 472 boosted; rulesage.errata.boost-enabled=true, rulesage.errata.supersedence-enabled=true
base rulebook doc 472 boosted
answered-before recall: this ruling was answered, so past rulings were not offered
similarity threshold in force: 0.55 (rulesage.answered-before.similarity-threshold; the exact-question tier is not gated by it)
answer fence: passed — letter density 0.91933 of 2281 non-space chars (floor 0.45); 0 glyph-index tokens (max 2)
debug row recorded: Aug 19, 2026 17:59 UTC

retrieval — what the passage search returned

what this block IS: the PASSAGE SEARCH's own results — the same search that fills this page's closest-passages list — and NOT the passages the answerer read. Answering runs its OWN retrieval: a far wider candidate pool, re-ranked down to a final handful, plus floors this search never applies — the base rulebook, surviving errata corrections, and one slot per book on a multi-book read. Each of those armed only if THIS ask sent what it needs: the boost block names the ids it forwarded, and the scope line names the books it read. A document the answer CITES that no row here names is therefore EXPECTED, not a defect: two searches, two candidate pools, two orders. The answerer's own final rows are shown in their own block below, beside these and never mixed into them.

score = the fused retrieval score (reciprocal-rank fusion over the search arms) — NOT a cosine similarity. This ruling ran the THREE-ARM fuse (full-text + vector + the doc-priority boost arm, which carried the base rulebook and/or the errata corrections this query matched), whose arithmetic ceiling is 0.04918 — all three arms ranking the same chunk #1 (ceiling = arms/(k+1) at k=60). The measured healthy band 0.016–0.033 was measured on TWO-arm asks and does not bound this one: its high end is the two-arm ceiling, and a third arm has room above it. A chunk only one arm ranked highly lands near 0.016 (that one arm's #1 vote), so 0.03 here is an excellent hit, not a 3% match.

per-arm ranks (the rank each search arm gave a chunk): NOT DISCLOSED by the gateway. Fusion happens gateway-side and only the FUSED score crosses the wire, so rulesage cannot show them without a gateway change. The rank column below is the FUSED rank (position in the returned list), which is real.

token count per chunk: NOT DISCLOSED — chunk token counts are not reported on the ask path. The character counts below are of the bounded snippet/quote rulesage actually received — a real measurement of what we hold, never an estimate of the chunk.

fused rank	document	heading	page	fused RRF score	snippet chars
#1	RULEBOOK Above and Below — Rulebook (corpus doc 472)	Setting up the Game	p.4	0.048916 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	300
#2	RULEBOOK Above and Below — Rulebook (corpus doc 472)	Above and Below is played in rounds.	p.6	0.047883 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	300
#3	RULEBOOK Above and Below — Rulebook (corpus doc 472)	Setting up the Game	p.4	0.047643 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	300
#4	RULEBOOK Above and Below — Rulebook (corpus doc 472)	Put Something for Sale	p.9	0.031746 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	300
#5	RULEBOOK Above and Below — Rulebook (corpus doc 472)	Explore	p.8	0.030769 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	300
#6	RULEBOOK Above and Below — Rulebook (corpus doc 472)	Explore	p.6	0.030303 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	300
#7	RULEBOOK Above and Below — Rulebook (corpus doc 472)	Advancement Track	p.12	0.029851 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	300
#8	RULEBOOK Above and Below — Rulebook (corpus doc 472)	Refresh Building Row · Pass · 2. End the Round: When · Round Marker · Cider · New Villagers · …	p.10	0.029412 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	300

what the answerer read — the passages it actually had in front of it

what this block IS: the passages the ANSWERING read put in front of the answerer, in the order it read them — the other half of the two reads described above, and the one that decides what the answer could possibly say. Each row names the book it came from and where in that book it sits, what it scored when the search arms were fused, which arm carried it there, and whether the re-ranker chose it or a floor guaranteed it a slot. A row here that no passage-search row names is EXPECTED: a far wider pool, re-ranked, with floors the passage search never applies.

candidate pool: the answering read scored 23 passages, out of a ceiling of 80 set gateway-side. Both figures are reported by the gateway for THIS ask — measurements of what actually happened, not constants read out of anyone's source and printed here on faith.

floors armed for this ask: the base rulebook — armed · surviving errata corrections — not armed · one slot per book on a multi-book read — not armed. Every floor is stated on every ask, armed or not, so a floor that did not apply here is never mistaken for one this app does not know about.

arms fused for this ask: vector + full-text + the doc-priority boost arm. Stated separately from the rows because an arm that ran and carried nothing is a different fact from an arm that never ran.

read at	document	heading	page	fused rank	fused RRF score	carried by	how it got its slot
#1	RULEBOOK Above and Below — Rulebook (corpus doc 472)	Setting up the Game	p.4	#3	0.047643 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	vector + full-text + the doc-priority boost arm	the re-ranker chose it
#2	RULEBOOK Above and Below — Rulebook (corpus doc 472)	Setting up the Game	p.4	#1	0.048916 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	vector + full-text + the doc-priority boost arm	the re-ranker chose it
#3	RULEBOOK Above and Below — Rulebook (corpus doc 472)	Harvest · Train · Labor · Free Actions · Buy From a Player	p.9	#13	0.014286 (below 0.016, the low end of the measured band — a weak fuse (that band was taken on two-arm asks; only its low end, one arm's #1 vote, carries over to a 3-arm one))	vector	the re-ranker chose it
#4	RULEBOOK Above and Below — Rulebook (corpus doc 472)	Explore	p.6	#6	0.030303 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	vector + the doc-priority boost arm	the re-ranker chose it
#5	RULEBOOK Above and Below — Rulebook (corpus doc 472)	Three Goods on the Advancement Track · Refresh Goods on Buildings · Pass First-Player card to the Left · Start the Next Round	p.11	#12	0.014493 (below 0.016, the low end of the measured band — a weak fuse (that band was taken on two-arm asks; only its low end, one arm's #1 vote, carries over to a 3-arm one))	vector	the re-ranker chose it
#6	RULEBOOK Above and Below — Rulebook (corpus doc 472)	Advancement Track	p.12	#7	0.029851 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	vector + the doc-priority boost arm	the re-ranker chose it
#7	RULEBOOK Above and Below — Rulebook (corpus doc 472)	Put Something for Sale	p.9	#4	0.031746 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	vector + the doc-priority boost arm	the re-ranker chose it
#8	RULEBOOK Above and Below — Rulebook (corpus doc 472)	Above and Below is played in rounds.	p.6	#2	0.047883 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	vector + full-text + the doc-priority boost arm	the re-ranker chose it

chosen chunks — what the answer actually cited

#	document	heading	page	quote chars
[1]	RULEBOOK Above and Below — Rulebook (corpus doc 472)	Above and Below is played in rounds.	p.6	no quote on the wire
[2]	RULEBOOK Above and Below — Rulebook (corpus doc 472)	Harvest · Train · Labor · Free Actions · Buy From a Player	p.9	no quote on the wire
[3]	RULEBOOK Above and Below — Rulebook (corpus doc 472)	Explore	p.6	no quote on the wire
[4]	RULEBOOK Above and Below — Rulebook (corpus doc 472)	Three Goods on the Advancement Track · Refresh Goods on Buildings · Pass First-Player card to the Left · Start the Next Round	p.11	no quote on the wire

generation — timing and the path taken

timing split: retrieval 111 ms · first delta 2098 ms · total 6874 ms (retrieval and first-delta both measured from the START of gateway work, so first-delta INCLUDES retrieval — do not subtract)
full breakdown: queued 0 ms · retrieval 111 ms · ask 6761 ms · gateway work 6874 ms · total 6874 ms
tokens in (the prompt the answerer read): 2770
tokens out (what the answerer generated): 650
tok/sec: 137.5 tok/sec — 650 output tokens in 4.726 s of generation
live seat (read from the running child): answering — gemma4:26b think:false · num_ctx 32768 (live-verified 44s ago)
answerer host (measured by rulesage): reachable (for 22h, checked 2s ago)
answerer node (the seat proxy's own header — this probe, not this ask): node1
stream path: streamed — the gateway pushed at least one accumulated draft
watchdog: first-token watchdog: 30s per arming window (rulesage.table.first-token-watchdog-seconds), re-armed once by the passages frame — so the worst case before a reader falls back to polling is 60s. Whether it actually fired is a BROWSER-side decision that never reaches the server, so it is not recorded here. The stream path above is the server's half of that story: whether a delta was emitted at all.
num_ctx · think posture: both are the CHILD's settings, not rulesage's, and no ask reply carries them — an answer never states which context window or think posture produced it. The live-seat line above reads them from the running child instead, where the gateway can answer for itself; it describes the child NOW, not this ask.

disposition

outcome: ANSWERED — Answered
abstain rationale (n/a — this ruling answered): answered — no abstain rationale applies

setup-shape — why the checklist band did or didn't render

decision: NOT_SETUP_SHAPED — no setup-shape pattern matched this question

errata registry — what the gate above had to match against

this game registers NO errata cards (edition 402), so "no registered errata card matched" above could never have matched one

Errata scope: the gate above matched this ruling's own edition only. When an ask also reads an expansion, that expansion's own registered errata cards stay outside the match — a stated phase-1 limitation, not a failed lookup.